News.

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Amber ?" <inviziblegirl at h...> wrote:
> > 
> Not to put a damper on things, but today I was laid off from 
> work. About thirty consultants in the company that I work for were. 

That's dreadful, Amber, especially since you just moved.  My 
husband's company has their home office in North Carolina, but he 
works in the Malvern, PA office, where they just laid off 4 out of 
the 11 remaining workers there.  If they ever threaten to just close 
the Malvern office and tell the 7 remaining people they have to move 
to NC, my husband says he'll just quit.  (Thank goodness; neither one 
of us wants to move.)  

In the days directly preceding the lay-offs, they were getting "oh 
we're fine, we're great" from the home office, just as you were.  The 
trouble is, since it's a publicly-traded company, they couldn't 
legally say anything about the lay-offs ahead of time or the SEC 
could have come down on them.  The really disgusting thing is that 
the company stock doubled or tripled in price after the lay-offs were 
officially announced.  (That's not saying much; the price was below a 
dollar.)  

It always sickens me when I read about a company having lay-offs and 
then the stock price going up; investors should be rewarding 
companies which are employing MORE people, not trying to get the same 
people to do their own plus other jobs for the same salaries. I know; 
when I was laid off (ten years ago now) my former co-workers very 
quickly started quitting because of the extra work dumped on them. My 
husband is also working long hours again, taking over the work of the 
people in his office who were sacked, with, of course, no overtime 
pay, as he is a "senior" programmer.  

I can only say that although at the time, it was very jarring and 
scary to be jobless, being laid-off was one of the best things that 
ever happened to me.  I was unemployed for a month (thank goodness 
for severance pay and unemployment benefits), but my new job had 
better pay/benefits, flextime and was more interesting.  You never 
know what may be out there waiting for you!  Best of luck Amber; I 
don't see how someone like you (brilliant and hard-working) could 
possibly be out of work for long, regardless of the length of your 
experience.  Anyone who gets you for an employee will be very, very 
lucky.

--Barb